Single Touch Payroll
Single Touch Payroll (STP) is a new way of reporting to the ATO tax and super information that you pay for your employees. This will be effective from 01/07/2019 for all employees.
What you need to know
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Employers with 20 or more employees
Single Touch Payroll started from 1 July 2018 for employers with 20 or more employees.
You should either be reporting through STP, or have a deferral in place (a later start)
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Employers with 5-19 employees (small employers)
The parliament has passed legislation to extend STP to include all employers from 1 July 2019.
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Employers with 1-4 employees (micro employers)
If you have four or less employees (micro employer) and you don’t currently use payroll software, there will be other ways to report STP information.
In near future there will be build no-cost and low-cost STP solutions for micro employers – including simple payroll software, mobile phone apps and portals.
A list of companies intending to offer these solutions is published by ATO.
You will also have the option for to report your PAYGW information quarterly through us as your Tax Agent, by lodging deferral through the Tax agent Portal rather than each time you run payroll. This option will be available until 30 June 2021.
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How to report
You can send STP data to the ATO in one of the following ways.
Option one: Report through existing payroll or accounting solution
You can report from your existing payroll or accounting software if STP reporting is available.
Next step:
- Talk to your software provider to find out how they offer STP and what you need to do to update your product.
- Find out how to get ready for Single Touch Payroll.
Cost
- STP reporting is included without any additional fees in most accounting or payroll software.
Option two: Choose STP enabled payroll software
You may need to choose payroll software if you do not currently use it or your current software provider is not offering an STP-enabled product.
Some providers are not updating their older products, such as those purchased off-the-shelf.
If you have four or less employees, and you do not need payroll software, you can use an alternate solution (see option three).
Next step:
- Talk to us to find out which payroll software product would best suit your business needs.
Cost
- Software subscription fee approximately $15 per month for maximum of 5 employees.
- If you are employing 5 or more employees, software subscription fee is from $65 per month.
- There will be no cost solution such as mobile apps in the market soon.
The following Mobile applications will enable you to report wages in a manner that complies with Single Touch Payroll.
- Reckon: https://www.reckon.com/au/
- Easy Payslip: https://www.easypayslip.com.au/
For businesses with 1-4 employees, Reckon (option 1) would perhaps be the more favourable option as there is no monthly fee involved. However, if you have more than 4 employees, both applications will incur a monthly fee so you may also want to consider Easy Payslip (option 2).
Both applications are available on Apple and Android devices. Please explore the options to determine which one better suits your needs.
Option three: Lodge your STP date through us quarterly.
If you are employing less than 5 employees this option is available till 30 June 2021. you need to lodge for a deferral through your tax Agent and need to report as normally through you BAS each quarter
Please find more information on the following link
https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Bus/Single-Touch-Payroll-for-closely-held-employees-factsheet/
